As high speed rail plans pick up speed in Texas’s major urban centers, Dallas-area business leaders are calling for the construction to include the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.

There are a number of options on the table to connect the airport and the proposed rail system into a robust intermodal transportation network.

Planners think that they can

Run high-speed rail to the rental car center on the airport’s south side, and convert the center into a transit hub.

Build a new version of SkyLink — the airport’s people mover — as far south as CentrePort.

Build an overhead high-speed rail line up the west side of D/FW’s airfield, and intermingle high-speed rail with a planned commuter rail hub at Terminals A and B.

No decision has yet been made.

“They’re all doable. It’s just a matter of the dollars involved,” said Jim Crites, D/FW Airport executive vice president of operations, in the Star-Telegram.

Intermodal travel is an often-overlooked part of the transportation equation in the U.S., partly because cars and other automobiles can easily take us just about anywhere we want to go. However, connecting high speed rail lines to airports makes a lot of sense too. Travelers who live along the route, or near it would be able to hop on a train and be taken directly to the airport, with a minimum of difficulty. Not only would high speed rail be valuable as a regional travel option, but in the case of international travel, it becomes an important tool in an intermodal journey.

In the meantime, of course, the question must be asked, how much does Texas need a high speed rail system in the first place. Texas is the home and birthplace of Southwest Airlines, the paragon of discount air travel. Furthermore, despite its population of 24 million, according to the most recent census data, Texas by itself would be one of the larger countries in the world, with it’s major urban centers distributed across the entirety of its land mass. Texas as a state is larger than Spain, where one of the most successful high speed rail networks, the AVE, is an integral part of national travel. However, Spain’s cities are much more densely-packed and closer to each other, than San Antonio is to Houston, or El Paso to Dallas, for instance.

In a recent San Francisco Examiner op/ed, Michael Barone looks at the necessity and performance of high speed rail in continent-sized countries and concludes that there are simple reasons why they are ineffective. Beating air travel is impossible in terms of time spent between destinations, and driving is simpler, and often necessary just to get to train stations. Texas may not be as big as a continent, but it may as well be.

While connecting high speed rail to the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport makes sense, building high speed rail in Texas may not. As long as the rail feeding frenzy is underway, might as well think big. Big like Texas!

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